29th P3 AIC At TRIVANDRUM

FIXATION OF PAY ON PROMOTION TO PO&RMS ACCOUNTANTS

SLP filed in Hon. Supreme Court against Karnataka High Court decision on fixation of pay on promotion to PO & RMS Accountants dismissed

Despite our request not to file any SLP on the High Court Karnataka decision on fixation

 of pay of PO & RMS accountants on promotion, the Department has filed SLP in 

the Supreme Court as per the opinion of the Ministry of Finance. Now the supreme 

court has dismissed the SLP. Now the Department has no option except implement 

the Karnataka CAT and High Court decision. The Department should come forward 

to implement the decision to all the similarly situated persons.

The Supreme Court has fined Rs. 50000/- to Department

A remarkable and marvelous decision.

ITEM NO.9                   COURT NO.5                 SECTION IVA

S U P R E M E   C O U R T   O F    I N D I A

RECORD OF PROCEEDINGS

Petition(s) for Special Leave to Appeal (Civil)....../2012 CC 10080/2012

(From the judgement and order dated 18/11/2010 in WP No.7593/2003, of The HIGH 
COURT OF KARNATAKA AT BANGALORE)

CHIEF POST MASTER GEN.KARNATAKA CIR.& ORS                            Petitioner(s)

                   VERSUS

S. MOHAN KUMAR                                                                       Respondent(s)

(With appln(s) for c/delay in filing SLP)

Date: 05/07/2012    This Petition was called on for hearing today.

CORAM :

          HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE G.S. SINGHVI

          HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SUDHANSU JYOTI MUKHOPADHAYA

For Petitioner(s)         Mr.   R.P. Bhatt, Sr. Adv.

                          Mr.   Ashok K. Srivastava, Adv.

                          Ms.   B Sunita Rao, Adv.

                          Mr.   B. Krishna Prasad,Adv.(Not present)

For Respondent(s)

            UPON hearing counsel the Court made the following

                                O R D E R

              This petition filed for setting aside order dated 18.11.2010 passed 
by the Division Bench of the Karnataka High Court is accompanied by an application 
for condonation of 445 days delay.

            We have heard Shri. R. P. Bhatt, learned senior counsel representing the 
petitioners and carefully perused the averments contained  in the application 
filed under Section 5 of the Limitation Act and are convinced that there is no 
valid ground to accept the explanation offered by the petitioners for delayed filing 
of the special leave petition.

         We are further of the view that the Bangalore Bench of the Central Administrative
 Tribunal did not commit any error by quashing the action taken by the petitioners to 
re-fix the respondent's pay on the recommendations of the Vth Pay Commission
 and the High Court rightly declined to entertain the petitioners' challenge to the 
order of the Tribunal.

         Learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners could not put forward 
any tangible argument to support re-fixation of the respondent's pay in the light of 
the recommendations of the Vth Pay Commission. Therefore, we do not find any valid 
ground to interfere with the impugned order.

         The special leave petition is accordingly dismissed on the ground of delay and 
also on merits.

         For filing a frivolous petition like the present one, the petitioners are saddled 
with costs of rupees fifty thousand which shall be deposited by them with the Supreme
 Court Legal Services Committee within a period of eight weeks from today. It will 
be open to the Central Government to recover the amount of costs from the officers 
responsible for taking wholly arbitrary and unjustified action for re-fixing the respondent's pay.

(Parveen Kr.Chawla)                                                                                    

Court Master                                                                                           

(Phoolan Wati Arora)             
Court Master

FIVE PROMOTIONS

5 PROMOTIONS

{ EDITORIAL POSTAL LIFE – AUGUST - 2012}

In 1978, while entering in its Silver Jubilee Year, the NFPTE had organised its P&T Convention at Patna. The demand of “3 Promotions at 10, 20 and 25 years” for P&T employees was coined in that National Convention. This demand was necessitated by the fact that most of the P&T employees were retiring without even getting a single promotion in their long career in those days. The Clerical employees retired without even becoming LSG and the Postmen were retiring without even promoted as Sorting Postman or Head Postman / Mail Overseer Postman, the only hierarchical promotion available at that time. After much negotiations and struggles, ultimately the Government agreed two promotions and introduced TBOP and BCR Promotions on completion of 16 and 26 years. All P&T employees were thereafter ensured of at least two promotions. But the movement had paid some price including major punishments to cadres to win the demand of two promotions.

The introduction of TBOP and BCR promotions caused the hierarchical promotion of Sorting Postman / Mail Overseer Postman etc irrelevant as most of the Postmen staff attained TBOP and BCR promotion before getting the only regular promotion available. The Department also discontinued constituting the DPC to promote Postmen staff. Similar was the case with the Group ‘D’ staff also, in whose case the promotion to Jamedar Group ‘D’ was discontinued. Even though the Department had subsequently declared unilaterally that the TBOP/BCR is not a promotion but only a scheme of financial upgradation like ACP Scheme, the regular hierarchical  promotional ladder was not restored or updated to ensure regular promotion to Postman and Group ‘D’ cadres. However, the TBOP, BCR ensured two automatic upgradations financially.

Discriminatingly during the same time, the Officialdom did not satisfy itself with the available two or three promotions in its career but went ahead with repeated cadre restructuring schemes to ensure at least five promotions for the cadre of Officers! We see that an IPS Officer entering as SSPOs [Junior Time Scale Officer] in the Postal Department is ensured of five promotions at least in his career as Senior Time Scale, DPS, PMG, Chief PMG, Board Member and Director General. In Departments like Income Tax a Class I officer who enters as  Assistant Commissioner as an IRS Officer goes ahead with the promotions like Deputy Commissioner, Joint Commissioner, Additional Commissioner, Commissioner of Income Tax, Chief Commissioner of Income Tax, Board Member in CBDT and Chairman of CBDT. This is the case with all departments. The Government never cared for the promotional avenues of Group C and D employees while going on improving the career advancement of top officers.

The 6th Pay Commission also not cared much for ending the discrimination between the employees and officers in the central services. It simply recommended for only improving the periodicity of ACP financial upgradation from 12 and 24 years into 10 and 20 years through MACP. After much discussion in the JCM Standing Committee, the Government made only a marginal improvement by granting the third upgradation on completion of 30 years but created a lot of anomalies including taking away the benefit of parity with hierarchical promotions. The increase in number of up gradations to three necessitated us to switch over from TBOP/BCR system to MACP Scheme though we knew that under MACP the Promotees will not be granted equal number of up gradations like a direct recruitment. We however embraced the MACP for its benefits with the idea to focus the discrimination and set right it through our organisational efforts. Now, with the historic judgment of Jodhpur CAT, we have brighter chances of set righting the anomaly. But even that will not bring parity with the Officers, who are ensured of at least five promotions.

It is in this background that the NFPE raised it in the National Secretariat of the Confederation of CG Employees and the Confederation expanded its Charter of Demands into 15 Points by including the demand of Grant of 5 Promotions to all employees in their career on par with the Officers. This is a very important demand with far reaching implications in advancing the status of the Group C employees including the Postman and MTS.  The demand attains much more importance in the background of our cadre restructuring issue stagnating without any noticeable progress and at the initial level of discussions only. Proper popularisation of this new demand of 5 Promotions among all our membership is absolutely essential to create necessary tempo as we know very well that only when a new idea grips the minds of the employees it becomes a material force. We broke the stalemate in 1980s by strongly agitating for 2 Promotions. Let us now embrace the new demand of 5 Promotions and make it a reality soon. But everything depends on the rank and file organisation, which alone can succeed not only in popularising the new demand but also rousing the employees to agitate for the 15 Points charter of Confederation that focuses on 7th CPC, 50% merger of DA and grant of 5 Promotions etc. Time has come to end the discrimination between top officers and the bottom employees on number of promotions to advance the career prospects.

NEW POSTAL POLICY-2012

NEW POSTAL POLICY 2012

ROADMAP TO PRIVATISATION

(POSTAL CRUSADER – AUGUST - 2012 ISSUE - EDITORIAL)

Government of India has declared the New Postal Policy 2012. Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister Communications & IT has made a press statement also. Finally Govt. has decided to end the monopoly of Postal Department in collecting, processing, conveyance and delivery of letter mail articles and allow private couriers also to function legally.

As per the Govt’s. version – “the idea is to develop Indian Postal Sector as a full-fledged market, bring in more service providers to enhance employment (?) and contribution to nations GDP (?).” It further states that – “At present Department of Posts, which has around five lakhs employees, is the sole body responsible for policy making, regulation and providing postal service. The over 100 year old Indian Post office Act, which governs the Postal sector, bars any individual or entity from delivering letter for commercial purpose.” Communication Minister has asked Department of Posts to create a framework to support small and medium Postal Operators (i.e. couriers) and new models to encourage entrepreneurship in the sector.

One of the guiding principles of the National Postal Policy (NPP) is promotion of partnership between private and public postal sectors. (i.e between couriers and Department of Posts) and to promote cooperation, inter action, resource sharing and fair competition among stake holders.

The NPP says that – “Competition leads to consumer satisfaction through lower prices, more choice and better quality of service. Efforts are therefore required to promote competition in the provision of Postal Services so as to maximize benefits to customers, particularly in rural and inaccessible areas Therefore it is necessary to develop a governance and legislative system that promotes fair competition in the Postal market and offers customer ample choice”.

In order to implement the above stated privatization policy, the Government is planning to separate the functions of policy making, regulation and operations of the over 150 years old Department of Posts. An independent body named Postal Development Board (PDB) will be responsible for the overall development and governance of the Postal Sector (including courier services). The PDB will also draw a roadmap for unbundling (ending monopoly and allowing private participation) of Postal departments functions.

The PDB will be set up under Secretary (Posts) and will include secretaries of Department of Economic Affairs, Department of Electronics and Imformation Technology, Department of Commerce and two members from Postal Services Board. A Postal Advisory Board (PAB) will be constituted which will have representation from Government, Industry payers, academics and other stake holders, to provide inputs to PDB on policy matters.

If the NPP is implemented in its totality, then the Postal Department will definitely meet the fate of Telecom. The existence of Department and job security of the five lakhs Postal employees will be in danger. NFPE calls upon the Postal and RMS employees including GDS to be ready for serious trade union action if the Government take any unilateral decision to privatise postal sector.

REQUEST TO POSTPONE POSTMAN TRAINING

The Divisional Union ,P4 strongly demanded the Divisional Administration to re-schedule the ongoing Training to Postman on account of Ramzan/ Onam. The Full text of the Savingram  issued by the Divisional Union is appended below:

SAVINGRAM DATED 17-08-2012

To

The SPOs, 

Ottapalam-679101.

PIV/GL/2012 AAA TRAINING TO POSTMAN SCHEDULED FROM 21-08-2012 MAY BE RESCHEDULES ON ACCOUNT OF EXPECTED HEAVY PENSION PAYMENTS AND OTHER DELIVERY OF ARTICLES AAA SUBSTITUTES ARE UNAVAILABLE DURING ONAM/ RAMZAN SEASON AAA URGENT INTERVENTION REQUESTED AAA

                                                                   Divisional Secretary

                                                                 

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY

HAI VIEWERS 

Letter to Circle Union

                           No. PIII/Gnl/08-2012                                              09-08-2012.

To

Com. M. Krishnan,

Circle Secretary,

AIPEU Group C -(NFPE)

P& T House,

Trivandrum-695001.

Sub:- Monitoring of  daily transactions-reg

Com,

           

A daily statement in Annexure-2, on monitoring daily transactions of all Project Arrow Offices in addition to the transmission of DET daily has been prescribed by CO and the Divisional Administration is pressing hard to prepare and submit the same daily without fail.

In this connection, it is noticed that this is a duplication of work and time wasting exercise as the same details are available in the DET and that can be had by all fields at all levels including Divisional office. Though the information required to monitor the daily functioning of the POs are reflected in the DET and it is available with Divisions, it is not known why the administration compelling staff to prepare and submit another statement daily with the same information. It is well known that staff are very much suffering to complete the daily works and running offices smoothly, due to over work and acute shortage of staff. I am sending  copies of communications received from the SPOs, Ottapalam on this account.

Further, the Divisional administration seeking explanations from the officials/ SPMs who submitted the statement in Annexure-2, if any discrepancy is noticed with the information collected from the DET and the Annexure-2 statement and insisting all to submit the statement without fail. In my Division, all offices including single handed are coming under “Project Arrow”.

As such, it is requested that this may please be taken up at appropriate level to avoid harassing and duplication of work.

                                                                                                       Comradely Yours,

                                                                                                     (Abdul Rahiman T.P)

                                                                                                               Secretary